In 2021, under Xavier Becerra’s HHS, taxpayers spent $782 million on a temporary 2,500-bed migrant shelter in Pomona that operated for just 203 days. Around $707 million went to Cherokee Nation Management & Consulting through a no-bid contract (there was no competition among vendors for the contract). Roughly 8,450 children passed through the facility, putting the cost at about $83,656 per child on the CNMC contract alone — or $92,608 per child once you include what HHS paid for the Fairplex itself. Based on the children’s average stay of 14 days, that’s $6,615 per child, per day for a literal cot, meals, and other basic amenities. California camps, on average, cost $1,000 for two weeks, including food and lodging. The contract was firm-fixed-price, meaning whatever CNMC did not spend, it kept. And for all that money on a single facility (there were $4.8 billion in no-bid contracts across 14 facilities total), whistleblowers who worked inside the program later alleged that children were being released to suspicious sponsors and potential labor- and sex-trafficking rings. Senator Chuck Grassley subsequently referred HHS records involving Pomona children to federal law enforcement, citing evidence of potential trafficking, while the NYT found children released by HHS working illegal, dangerous jobs — some suffering chemical burns, others being maimed by machinery, and some dying in workplace accidents. So the question really is: where did all our taxpayer money actually go — and who really is Xavier Becerra, the Democratic nominee responsible for all of this, who might actually become California’s next governor?